


Wake

by Dickbutt



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Identity Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gender Neutral, Jumping to Conclusions, Misunderstandings, Other, Werewolf Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8736622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dickbutt/pseuds/Dickbutt
Summary: You keep him calm. You keep him controlled.
You aren’t there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at: [Dickbutt Writes Again](http://dickbutt-writes-again.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> A lot of these didn't originally have actual titles. ...I don't know how to title things. Ao3 why.

He wakes with a head full of cotton fuzz, wrapped around a dull pounding behind his eyes – like one might have after a night of heavy drinking. McCree wishes it was just that; it would be far preferable to what had actually transpired. He blearily forces himself into wakefulness, tongue dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth. It makes him grimace with distaste. His entire body is sore, and eyes still closed and aching, he forces himself into a sitting position and attempts to take inventory of where he is and what could have happened under this most recent full moon.

The second of three nights has passed, and it makes him thankful to already be halfway through his monthly transformations with little issue. He’s even more thankful for your presence, since admitting to his… _condition_ , and you’ve spent the last several cycles with him (despite his insistence to the contrary), keeping him company, keeping him _calm._ He doesn’t often like to admit it, but he wishes he had better control of his lupine side. He’s often jumpy and irritable during the days of the waxing phases, transformations aside, and it irks him to have his moods yanked around by the moon.

You keep him calm. You keep him controlled.

…You aren’t there.

The startling revelation is enough to jar him into full awareness. He sits up in the near-empty cell, once a place for captive criminals of Overwatch, now used almost exclusively to contain him during his bouts of lycanthropy. He takes stock of his immediate surroundings. The makeshift cot you utilized – more a nest of blankets than anything – lays rumpled in the corner, betraying nothing of your presence; the countertop still holds his prosthetic arm, ready to reattach, and a change of clothes for when he became human again. And even if he can see the whole of the cell from where he sits, he still paces up and down, wondering where you could have gone.

It isn’t often you leave before he wakes as himself again, and the thought feels like icy fingertips clawing at his spine. He tries not to let his thoughts wander much further.

The pacing brings him to the blanket nest, which he stares at, as though you’ll manifest from it if he gazes at it long enough. He shakes his head and crosses to the other side where his effects  wait, reattaches his arm and dresses, tries to find distraction in the familiar human actions. There’s no mirror in the cell (he hates looking at himself during) but he combs his fingers through his hair in a way he hopes makes him look a little more presentable. He replaces his hat upon its rightful place and it has him feeling a little more put together already.

He wants to look for you. He doesn’t want to leave the room without you. He shouldn’t.

You keep him calm. You keep him controlled. Where are you?

He paces again, wall to wall. Minutes pass, and you still haven’t turned up. It isn’t anything to worry about, he asserts. You’re probably grabbing food for the both of you, and he satisfies himself with that answer, knowing how ravenous he can be during full moons. He sits, only for a few minutes, leg shaking, then stands, paces again.

An hour passes.

He goes to the blanket nest, then, will try to get some shut eye, because there’s a nagging at his nerves, something that doesn’t quite settle right, and if he’s unconscious he doesn’t have to think about it. He yanks a quilt from the pile with full intent of wrapping himself in it (and maybe indulging in your lingering scent a little), when the damning cloth falls free. His eyes focus in on the rumpled cloth, familiar in both appearance and smell, and he realizes with dawning dread that it’s your shirt.

There’s blood on it.

There’s blood on the shirt, he can _smell_ it, and the fabric is torn, like you tried to get away, like you –

His hands are grasping the fabric, twisting it in his white-knuckled grip until he’s sure he’s destroyed it beyond recognition. He doesn’t know how he didn’t smell it, it’s not a copious amount, but it’s everywhere, dripped on the blankets, the floor around the pile. He feels sick but doesn’t retch and the room spins, scrambling his already hazy mind. He hurt you, he _hurt_ you, where were you? You had to be alive, they’d have killed him if you weren’t.

But what if you’d died anyway?

He doesn’t think about it, refuses, just clutches the shirt and fights back against the thought that you could very well be gone, and even if you aren’t, like hell you’re coming back to him after what happened. He lets out an anguished sound, the wolf clawing at his insides, and he almost lets it claw its way out, but the door to the cell hisses open and slides sideways and he narrows his eyes at the intruder and his heart stops when he sees you standing in the doorway. You’re here.

You’re _alive._

The tears fall unbidden and you actually stumble backward a little bit when Jesse can’t even stand, resorts to wrapping his arms around your legs and burying his face in your hip.

“Woah, hey! Didn’t think you’d be up yet… are… are you alright?” He nods against you, squeezing you so tight you worry you might overbalance. “Sorry I wasn’t here, I went back to Mercy to get the scratches looked at, just in case they started bleeding again or something.”

McCree tenses; oh God, he _had_ hurt you, and the finality of the realization settles like an icy rock in his gut, and he makes a despairing sound low in the back of his throat. He halfway squeezes your legs again, before he near-violently throws himself away from you, feeling sick. You stand lost at the doorway of the cell, arms still slightly outstretched from where you were planning on embracing him, and stare solemnly at the man curled into himself on the cell floor. McCree covers his face in shame, muttering more to himself than you as you approach quietly.

“Don’t know why you put up with me, ain’t nothing but trouble, can’t even call myself a man if all I am’s a danger to ya’… Y’shouldn’ even be in here, ‘m not safe to be around, not if I hurt you…”

You crouch in front of him, gently pull at the hands that cover his face, tutting and cooing, trying to soothe his worries. You kiss what you can of his face, slide his hat off his head to run your fingers through his hair. He stares at you with wide, shame-filled eyes as you grab hold of his face with both hands and grant him a gentle kiss; he makes a soft sound against your mouth. When you part, you make him look at you.

“Jesse, it’s fine. I’m alright.”

“S’not _alright_ , I hurt – “ he croaks out before you interrupt him.

“We’re not playing this self-deprecating game again, Jesse McCree,” you tell him sternly, squeezing his face, which causes him to pull away from your touch. “Let’s just say you’re just as grabby as a wolf as you are a man.”

His posture changes. Maybe it’s your tone of voice, or the way you’re still gently scratching at his scalp, but he calms, still clearly upset, but no longer splitting apart at the seams. He leans into you, head heavy on your shoulder. Your words are slow and firm.

“I don’t know what was going on in that fuzzy head of yours, but something scared you, and you grabbed on to me, and when I told you to stop, you stopped. It’s _fine._ I’ve gotten worse scrapes in a fight, I’m going to be okay.”

“You’re okay,” he repeats.

“Yes.”

“And you aren’t leaving?”

“Wouldn’t if you made me.”

At last he sighs, slides his arms around your shoulders and pulls you close. You indulge him for a minute or two before you pull away to stand, tugging at his hands to get him to join you.

“Let’s get some food – we’ve got one more night ahead of us, after all.”

He smiles, and allows himself to be pulled along. You’re safe, you’re with him, and he plans on keeping things that way.

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